historian Ali Kayaev: It was supported by Turkish historian Fahreddin Kirzioglu, the early 20th century historian D. H. Mamaev, Halim Gerey Sultan, Muhammed Efendi, and others. Dagestanian historian R. Magomedov stated that: Russian professor of oriental studies, the Doctor of Historical Sciences I. Zaytsev, also shared the opinion that the Shamkhalate was a Kumyk state with the capital in the town of Kumuk (written thus in medieval sources). While studying works of the Timurid historians Nizam ad-Din Shami and Sheref ad-din Yezdi, Soviet historians V. Romaskevich and S. Volin, and Uzbek historian Ashraf Ahmedov, as well as professor in Alan studies O. Bubenok, call Gazi-Kumuk (also Gazi-Kumukluk in medieval sources) call the Shamkhalate area as the lands of Kumyks. Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi called the Shamkhal "a natural Oghuz". One of the arguments of the Turkic version is that Shamkhals were elected in the way that is traditional for Turkic peoples — tossing a red apple. Ancient pre-Muslim names of the Kumuk [today Kumukh] inhabitants, as fixed in Khuduk inscription — Budulay, Ahsuwar, Chupan and others — are of Turkic origin. On the graves of the Shamkhals in Kumukh there are Turkic inscriptions, as noted by professor of Caucasian studies L. Lavrov. The grave itself was called by the locals "Semerdalian" after the Khazar city of Semender; the gravestones there are patterned in a Kipchak style. In the "Maza chronicle" Shamkhals are described as "a branch of the Khan-Hakhan generations". Nizam ad-Din Shami Yezdi in his 14th century Timurid chronicle The Book of Triumph and Sheref ad-din Yezdi mentioned the land as Gazi-Kumukluk, where the suffix "luk" is a Turkic linguistic sign. The ruler of Andi people Ali-Beg, who founded a new ruling dynasty, also had a title of "Shamkhal". According to the local story, starting from Ali-Beg until Khadjik, the rulers of their land spoke in the "language of the plains", i.e. Kumyk. Jamalutdin-haji Mamaev in the beginning of the 20th century wrote: According to French historian Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Shamkhalate was dominated by the Turkic Kumyks, and the Lak people hold the honorable title of Gazis (because of the earlier adoption of Islam). Apart from that, the Shamkhalate had a feudal class of Karachi-beks, a title exclusively related to Mongol-Turkic states. Piano Karpini mentioned from his travels that Khazaria and Lak, even before falling in the hands of the "Western Tatars", belonged to the Cumans: Vasily Bartold also stated